Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

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Well this turned out to be a crappy day. Last night wasn’t so bad. I watched Lawn hors d’œuvre SUV and taped it for Bill. It was a good one, finally with Stephen Rea as the guest star.

A proper ending rather than the villain jumping off the roof, or Robin Williams jumping in the East River and not being found again.

I decided to watch District 9, which I downloaded the other day. Oh it was quite good, really well done and highly recommended. A bit slow at first but it takes off and takes you with it.

I sat at my computer with headphones on while Bill watched Lawn hors d’œuvre SUV. I was so engrossed that when Bill was getting ready for bed I didn’t hear him with headphones on, I got quite a scare when he waved his hand in front of my face to get my attention since tapping me on the shoulder wasn’t the way to go.

Then I went to bed soon after that where Bill was snoring away. His sleep apnea mask wasn’t fitting properly so he decided not to fix it, and snored. Did not make for an easy night of sleep so when he was leaving this morning, he did the usual of kissing me goodbye, saying that I looked very tired.

Tired from being unable to get a proper night’s sleep due to the snoring. He was fine and refreshed so I guess that was all that really mattered. I was able to get an hour of uninterrupted sleep and that was good, but nothing like the 7 hours I wanted.

That’s how the day started. I had to go out and buy milk for my cereal and that went well. Came home and checked my computer. Firefox was acting weird so I figured a restart would do the trick.

And it did, but it was the wrong trick and now my computer was inoperable. I figured Rand might have been in Florida and would simply say, ‘Oh hit Ctrl/Alt/Delete’ or some hocus-pocus like that.

But Rand was in Hoboken and though he didn’t have the time since he was flying tonight, he said he would stop by. He did make up the four flights of stairs and did a few things, one thing he felt he shouldn’t have done.

So now my computer sits there, forlorn and unused. The original message was that Windows was no longer there or corrupted. I’m sure I might have done something to corrupt the Windows but my type of corruption and computer corruption are basically 2 different things.

I started thinking about how yesterday was the fourth anniversary of my blog and I thought I wrote something funny. I expected some feedback, a pat on the back, a comment saying that it sucked, anything.

But I got nothing and after writing yesterday about how I write at least 500 words a day, today I wondered why do I bother? I know I can write 500 words a day at least, but without feedback it seems I write for myself and felt like chucking in the whole thing.

I’ve proved over a thousand times that I can write, but now…what’s the point?

Thank goodness for Xanax. At least I could rely on that to take the edge off.

And seeing Alexander today was the tippy top highpoint of an otherwise lackluster day.

This miserable rant was brought to you through the good graces of Bill letting me use his Mac and torment you with my scribbling. If you have a problem with that, tell him.

Rags to Riches

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Well I was just wondering what I should write about today. I haven’t done much, nothing really worth writing about. (Your line: And since when has that stopped you?) I almost called up Harpy to see if he could suggest anything, but changed my mind.

Then something inside, maybe my pancreas, said, ‘Isn’t today an anniversary of sorts?’ I said, I wasn’t sure. Then my Canals of Hering spoke up and said “maybe you should check the date of the first posting for johnozed.” So I reluctantly checked.

I hate it when the Canals of Hering are right. They can be so smug. I know I’ll never hear the end of it. ‘Ooh, we are part of the outflow system of exocrine bile product from the liver. Ooh look at us! We’re so clever!’ Still credit should be given where credit is due.

Ooh, we are soooo clever!

Ooh, we are soooo clever!

I looked at the archives and saw that today, October 7 was when I posted my first entry, way back in 2005. The entry was mainly about going with Bill to An Evening of American Satire with Barry Crimmins, Paul Krassner, Lewis Lapham, Kurt Vonnegut and Art Buchwald at the Society for Ethical Culture on Central Park West.

Both Vonnegut and Buchwald have passed away since then. No- I didn’t have anything to do with it.

Bill and I spoke with Lewis Lapham outside the hall where he was having a smoke after the show. He was the one who inspired me with something that a few other people had said before, that a writer should be like a musician.

Basically Lewis Lapham said, Where a musician practices for an hour or so each day, a writer should do something similar. Write for an hour or so, or write 300 words, or 500. Or 1000. I thank him for that and he rattled off that Balzac would write 500 words a day. Not 499 or 501 but 500.

Graham Greene would write only if his favorite parrot, Ozymandias would sing The White Cliffs of Dover in Latin. Impressive things to know. So being a big fan of Latin speaking parrots, I set about writing.

Initially it wasn’t easy and I found myself longing for a parrot of my own. It never came through though I did see a Starling fly into the supermarket. I’m sure I could have caught it and trained it somehow, but the only Latin I know is Tempus Fugit, E Pluribus Unum and that’s about it. Plus I was next in the express line and I wasn’t about to give up my place. It was all about the genius loci, you see.

Still it’s more than I know of Gaelic.

I also wrote about seeing Paul McCartney earlier that week at Madison Square Garden with Julio. That sort of repeated itself this past July and included Bill, Julio’s wife Stine, and Annemarie and Earl out in Flushing.

I know it seems all ab absurdo but it has been 4 years since I’ve started and I’d like to think things have improved. Not that I’ve done that much but I don’t see any of you writing at least 500 words a day. And by you, I mean the 6 people that subscribe to this cyber rag.

Perhaps it’s all cacoethes scribendi so caveat lector.

Caveat Lector! Squawk! Caveat Lector!

Caveat Lector! Squawk! Caveat Lector!